Do you know where this is?

This nearly empty row of shops tells a story that could be told in almost any part of the city of Worcester, as buildings evolve to meet need or disappear, overcome by the pressures around them.

On this site in the late 1940s was a four-story building of the type that could be any corner in this busy city: Storefronts on the first floor, apartments above. The broad structure occupied the corner, with frontage on two of Worcester's busiest streets at one of its busiest corners.

When that building sold in 1940, plans were to raze it and make a home for one of the building's larger tenants, but by 1949, that plan had clearly changed: the building was merely reduced to the two-stories shown in this picture.

By 1966, the building hung on, but barely; its larger tenants were gone. In the 1970s, it finally went the way of many other abandoned buildings, and was razed.

One might surmise that the 1940s plans for the building were too ambitious for a world that was at war; later, other changes to the area took away much of the foot traffic to make way for trolleys and cars that whisked potential shoppers past its doors.

Hint: The national chain store that once occupied part of this corner shared a mission with the current occupant — although from a different angle.